Before the Riots
By Crystal Eckles
I previously took a drama class in which I did my final paper and presentation on A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. When I read about the race riot in Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt, I could not help but to think about the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun. In the play Lena Younger, the mother, takes some of the money that was left to her, by her belated husband, and buys a house in an all-white neighborhood. In the play a representative from the all-white community comes to the Younger’s home with the intention to talk the family into not moving into their all-white community and to buy the house back. This does not go over well with the Younger family. The play ends with the Younger family moving out of their apartment, and supposedly into their new home. What happens to the family after they move into their new home? Do they sleep peacefully or do they wake up to burning crosses in their yard?
This is something that happened in Hansberry’s real life. Carl Hansberry, Hansberry’s father, actually bought a house in an all-white neighborhood. One of the members of the community, Anna Lee, did not want the black family to move into their community, so she wrote up a petition and had people of the community to sign it. She lied about the number of signatures and this lead to the well-known case Hansberry vs. Lee.
The play and the real historical event made me think that this is what happened before the race riots. Black people wanted to live in the nice communities and why not? Everyone deserves the best. During the time of the Hansberry vs. Lee case, segregation was still of public concern. Whites stay with whites; and blacks stay with blacks: “You can clean our homes, cook our food, wash our clothes, and raise our children, but you cannot be our neighbor.”
Though it was a struggle for blacks to gain equality, it did happen. Black people moved in the communities and white people packed their bags and left. This is when it became an issue- black people living in an area all together. Black people always lived together in a community. The only difference was that they lived where the white people told them to live; they worked when the white people told them to work, and at times spoke when the white people told them to speak. This space was different. It was different because it was once occupied by whites only.
How dare black people come in and take over; take power away from whites. Power is something that white people held onto and when the fear of not having it became an issue whites found ways to gain back their so called “power.” For example, in The Marrow of Tradition when the white men were having meetings about the towns black citizens, “Just look at those heads! – Before using’ and ‘After using’ We’d better hurry, or there’ll be no Negros to disfranchise! If they don’t stop till they get the color they desire, and the stuff works according to contract, they’ll all be white”. (84) Here white men were afraid of black people becoming white. Not the skin color, but having all the privileges that once belong only to white citizens. The white people could not let this happen. The blacks had their own hospital and their own newspaper, so when the “murder” of Mrs. Delamere happened, the whites were given their chance to demand their status as the powerful race.
These white men knew that Sandy did not murder Mrs. Delamere, but why not use that as their driving force to kill and harm innocent black men, women, and children? This started a riot that ended in innocent black people losing their lives. Some lost their lives and some lost their community. Children lost their childhood because they had to witness such a horrific event, and for one reason alone – the appetite for power.
Hansberry’s story is what happened before blacks started to move into the all-white communities, and riots like the one portrayed in The Marrow of Tradition is what happened after blacks started to fully occupy communities that where once known as a whites only living space. Whites had a certain authority to use violence in 1898 that they no longer had in 1940 when Hansberry vs. Lee case reached the Supreme Court.
By Crystal Eckles
I previously took a drama class in which I did my final paper and presentation on A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. When I read about the race riot in Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt, I could not help but to think about the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun. In the play Lena Younger, the mother, takes some of the money that was left to her, by her belated husband, and buys a house in an all-white neighborhood. In the play a representative from the all-white community comes to the Younger’s home with the intention to talk the family into not moving into their all-white community and to buy the house back. This does not go over well with the Younger family. The play ends with the Younger family moving out of their apartment, and supposedly into their new home. What happens to the family after they move into their new home? Do they sleep peacefully or do they wake up to burning crosses in their yard?
This is something that happened in Hansberry’s real life. Carl Hansberry, Hansberry’s father, actually bought a house in an all-white neighborhood. One of the members of the community, Anna Lee, did not want the black family to move into their community, so she wrote up a petition and had people of the community to sign it. She lied about the number of signatures and this lead to the well-known case Hansberry vs. Lee.
The play and the real historical event made me think that this is what happened before the race riots. Black people wanted to live in the nice communities and why not? Everyone deserves the best. During the time of the Hansberry vs. Lee case, segregation was still of public concern. Whites stay with whites; and blacks stay with blacks: “You can clean our homes, cook our food, wash our clothes, and raise our children, but you cannot be our neighbor.”
Though it was a struggle for blacks to gain equality, it did happen. Black people moved in the communities and white people packed their bags and left. This is when it became an issue- black people living in an area all together. Black people always lived together in a community. The only difference was that they lived where the white people told them to live; they worked when the white people told them to work, and at times spoke when the white people told them to speak. This space was different. It was different because it was once occupied by whites only.
How dare black people come in and take over; take power away from whites. Power is something that white people held onto and when the fear of not having it became an issue whites found ways to gain back their so called “power.” For example, in The Marrow of Tradition when the white men were having meetings about the towns black citizens, “Just look at those heads! – Before using’ and ‘After using’ We’d better hurry, or there’ll be no Negros to disfranchise! If they don’t stop till they get the color they desire, and the stuff works according to contract, they’ll all be white”. (84) Here white men were afraid of black people becoming white. Not the skin color, but having all the privileges that once belong only to white citizens. The white people could not let this happen. The blacks had their own hospital and their own newspaper, so when the “murder” of Mrs. Delamere happened, the whites were given their chance to demand their status as the powerful race.
These white men knew that Sandy did not murder Mrs. Delamere, but why not use that as their driving force to kill and harm innocent black men, women, and children? This started a riot that ended in innocent black people losing their lives. Some lost their lives and some lost their community. Children lost their childhood because they had to witness such a horrific event, and for one reason alone – the appetite for power.
Hansberry’s story is what happened before blacks started to move into the all-white communities, and riots like the one portrayed in The Marrow of Tradition is what happened after blacks started to fully occupy communities that where once known as a whites only living space. Whites had a certain authority to use violence in 1898 that they no longer had in 1940 when Hansberry vs. Lee case reached the Supreme Court.